


Immutable

by magisterpavus



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (s8 aint canon), Canon Compliant, Drinking, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Join Me, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Shiro (Voltron), Pre-Kerberos Mission, True Love, Unresolved Romantic Tension, bc that's what they d e s e r v e, happy valentines day im crying over sheith hbu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 22:15:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17795744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterpavus/pseuds/magisterpavus
Summary: Shiro never believed humans were made of anything but atoms before Keith.Because Keith can be nothing short of starstuff, paradoxes and wonders stitched together in the beautiful shape of a man who never forgets kindness, and never breaks his promises, no matter how cosmic and impossible they may be.And Shiro? Shiro is drunk.





	Immutable

**Author's Note:**

> i played myself this was supposed to be cheesy and stupid and now im EMOTIONAL. GOD.

Has Keith always been this pretty?

Shiro squints at him in the fading light and considers. The longer he thinks about it, the more he’s sure that Keith being pretty is, in fact, an immutable law of the universe. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, the curvature of space-time is directly determined by the distribution of matter and energy contained within it, an isolated system is bound to decline into disorder, and Keith is pretty.

Shiro does not argue with thermodynamics, so he does not argue with the revelation that the curve of Keith’s mouth is the stuff dreams are made of, to say nothing of the hazy gleam of his eyes and the crystalline tenor of his voice as he throws back his head and laughs.

But Shiro knows what to do with the other laws. He knows how to make electricity, how to chart courses through deep space, how to knock down dominoes and build them back up again. But he has never known what to do with Keith.

Keith is pretty, as he has always been, and though it is the first word that comes to mind Shiro knows _pretty_ is only the tip of the iceberg. Keith is pretty but he is also undeniably _powerful_ and that is just another part of his beauty, his brilliance.

Shiro never believed humans were made of anything but atoms before Keith.

Because Keith can be nothing short of starstuff, paradoxes and wonders stitched together in the beautiful shape of a man who never forgets kindness, and never breaks his promises, no matter how cosmic and impossible they may be.

And Shiro? Shiro is drunk.

Contrary to popular belief, which at this point has twisted into legend, Shiro is not a big fan of parties. The Coalition, unfortunately, can’t get enough of them – apparently peace and nunvil pair as well as wine and cheese. Tonight’s is with their newest ally, Planet Ya’riel, a large, arid world of deserts and mountains and cities tucked beside the scarce water sources, cradling rivers and lakes in their adobe arms.

Shiro stands on the balcony of the sandstone palace and pretends to watch the sunset, a spreading golden glow on the horizon overlaid by the violent veil of red dust and churning black clouds. The sky could be on fire and he wouldn’t notice, not when Keith is rubbing elbows with Ya’riel ambassadors like a natural, like it hasn’t taken years for his shell of thick desert clay to crack open. Even then, Shiro thinks, it hasn’t fallen away.

Nor should it, he thinks, the burn of alcohol in the back of his throat bringing every protective urge he has, has always had, towards Keith. They are a finely-wrought chain, and Shiro is all tangled up in them. So what if he doesn’t want Keith to bare his soul to the Universe the way he has for Shiro? So _what_ if he _knows_ he doesn’t deserve the way Keith looked at him at the edge of space with Shiro’s sword to his throat; deserves the words Keith said to him then even less? So what if he knows Keith won’t, shouldn’t, _can’t_ bare his soul to Shiro ever again?

Keith is pretty. So _what._

It means nothing, except that Shiro is doomed, and needs more space-whiskey.

“It isn’t _space-whiskey,_ silly.”

He was thinking too hard to guard his back, and now Keith is standing in front of him with three ambassadors, and Shiro is trapped on the balcony with them all, drunk, and how _is_ it that Keith is _even prettier_ up close?

Keith leans in, clinks his glass against Shiro and smiles like Puck reincarnated. “More like space-tequila, huh? But nice tequila, probably,” he quickly adds to the ambassadors. “Wouldn’t know, I only got cheap shit in Arizona! But this is nice.”

“You are too kind, Paladin,” the tallest one murmurs. “But, in fact, this variety of nunvil is very special. Its taste changes depending upon the drinker’s mood and intentions for the night. It may very well taste like “space-whiskey” to your friend.”

Shiro sets down his glass, stricken. He feels very called out. And also, drunk. Has he mentioned he’s drunk? Very.

“But whiskey is for sad people,” Keith blurts. “Are you sad people, Shiro?”

The ambassadors’ various pairs of eyes widen. “Oh! _You_ are Shiro – forgive us, Paladin, it is dark, and we did not –”

“No need,” Shiro manages, lifting his hand weakly and freezing when Keith grabs it, his brows inching closer and closer together like concerned black caterpillars.

“Do you want some space-tequila? It’s really good,” Keith whispers urgently, like the ambassadors aren’t within direct earshot. They shift around awkwardly. Shiro tries, and fails, to astrally project so he can leave his body to deal with this alone.

Actually, considering what happened the last time he was in the astral plane leaving this body to its own devices, better not.

“That’s okay, Keith,” Shiro croaks. He will not say Keith is pretty. He will _not._ Why would he say that?

_Because it is an immutable law of the universe and if nobody has told Keith he looks pretty tonight, they should have,_ he answers himself, hopefully inside his head.

No, wait. Shiro doesn’t want anyone else calling Keith pretty.

But what if they have already? What if, while Shiro was away turning all the space-tequila into a minibar of misery, the ambassadors have already told Keith the laws of the universe, told him that the fall of his hair and the braid woven careless and devastating through his long bangs is the inspiration for entropy, that the firm, wide span of his fingers around Shiro’s wrist is a calloused collection of dear memories they will never know – because only Shiro was there when Keith cut his palm open on the rocks beside their hoverbikes, only Shiro was there to clean it with an upended water bottle, to wrap it with gauze and kiss it better as a joke on the backs of Keith’s bruised knuckles.

And only Shiro remembers that he expected Keith to squirm away, laughing and swatting at him with red cheeks, ready to race him back to the Garrison under the searing sun to regain his dignity...but instead Keith looked up at him, earnest and soft, his cut hand still cupped in Shiro’s palms, and whispered, “I’m so glad you’re here with me, Takashi.”

And only Shiro remembers that he let go as if stung, let go because he was surprised, confused, afraid – all three, maybe. It wasn’t just gratitude in Keith’s shining eyes, then, and maybe it had never been just that.

Only Shiro remembers that nobody has ever looked at him the way Keith does, and Keith has never stopped looking at him like that. Even now, ten years later, as the dust storm on Ya’riel rolls in with the dull roar of distant lions and the ambassadors shuffle away with curious mumblings, Keith looks up at him, earnest and soft, and whispers, “I’m here, Takashi.”

“Yeah,” Shiro breathes. “You are. You – you always are.”

Keith’s forehead crinkles; he tilts his head. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Shiro’s throat constricts. He can name a dozen reasons off the top of his head. But he doesn’t. Keith already knows them, of course he does. He isn’t stupid. No, he’s the smartest person Shiro’s ever met.

“You should be with the other Paladins,” Shiro says instead, dropping his hand so Keith’s grasp slips from his wrist.

Keith doesn’t break his gaze. “You’re a Paladin too, Shiro,” he says. Before Shiro can reply, a cold glass nudges at his lips. He blinks. “Space-tequila,” Keith says. “C’mon. Think happy thoughts. What makes you happy, Shiro?”

Keith tips back the glass, Shiro’s hand loosely framing his grip. Flames spill across his tongue, bitter, as before.

But as he looks at Keith, haloed by the sunset and the red dust storm, he thinks of bruised knuckles and soft lips and wild laughter and cliff edges.

He thinks of orbiting the Earth from a hundred miles up and he looks out at the dry brown stretch of the desert and imagines Keith at the top of their cliff, watching the same sunset, and space doesn’t seem so vast after all.

He thinks of cold damp cells and wounds never allowed to heal and he thinks of squeezing his eyes shut until Keith’s face flashes through the miasma of adrenaline and fear like lightning.

He thinks of falling stars and nighttime and Keith’s bed, hardly more than a mattress heaped with worn sheets and the fleece tie blanket he made with his father the winter before he died. He thinks of turning his hazy head on the pillow, blinking slow and uncertain, tensed for another battle, another loss, another hurt. He thinks of seeing Keith instead. He thinks of reaching out with a half-formed sob neither of them have spoken of since, and touching Keith’s face with every expectation that his fingers will fall right through.

He thinks of the relief he felt when they didn’t, when his remaining hand made contact with Keith’s warm, sunburnt, unscarred cheek, when Keith whispered, “I found you.”

He thinks of pulling Keith close then in a shivery, feverish embrace. He thinks he might have said something, then. He thinks Keith might have said it back.

It was so simple, then.

Shiro opens his eyes. He doesn’t remember closing them. Keith is smiling at him. “Did it work?” he asks.

Shiro can’t even remember what it tasted like. He reaches out and touches Keith’s cheek. It’s still warm. The scar is rough. “You make me happy,” he says.

Keith’s eyes go wide; his hand darts up to hold Shiro’s wrist – to rip it away or keep it there, neither of them know. His lips form shapes but no sounds.

“I miss you,” Shiro says into the silence.

After a long, aching moment, Keith takes a step closer, and his expression is much like the one Shiro thinks he must have had that night Keith found him, and brought him home.

“I miss you, too,” Keith whispers against the pad of his thumb.

And it isn’t what either of them wants to say, not yet, but someday, they will say it, and someday, it will be simple again.

But for now, Shiro closes the space between them, wrapping Keith up tighter in his arms than he has allowed himself to in years, and hides a kiss in Keith’s hair to find and return properly later, and thinks, as loud and as honest as he can, _I love you. I love you. I love you._


End file.
